


A Little Ironic

by TenSpencerRiedPlease



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Asexual Character, Asexual Tony Stark, Awesome Sam Wilson, Bucky and his Plumbs, Coming Out, Humor, M/M, Peggy for President, Protective Sam Wilson, Sam Wilson is a Gift, Tony Being Tony, Tony Feels, and his coming to terms with things, mostly this is about ace Tony tho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-16
Updated: 2017-07-16
Packaged: 2018-12-03 03:00:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11523144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TenSpencerRiedPlease/pseuds/TenSpencerRiedPlease
Summary: Tony’s friends look confused and he guess he can see why they would be. He had one hell of a reputation so finding out he was not only asexual but outright disgusted by sex had to be a bit of a shock.Sam knew of course, but they’ve been dating for over a year so this was something that came up pretty early on in their relationship.





	A Little Ironic

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted ace Tony and a pairing I don't write a lot of. So Sam/ Tony it was. Also Sam is such a sweetie so of course he'd be all supportive and such.

Tony’s friends look confused and he guess he can see why they would be. He had one hell of a reputation so finding out he was not only asexual but outright disgusted by sex had to be a bit of a shock. Sam knew of course, but they’ve been dating for over a year so this was something that came up pretty early on in their relationship. Tony hadn’t even known what asexual was then though and when Sam introduced the concept it freaked him out to think he wasn’t normal. Sam had gently reminded him that there was a time in which falling under _any_ sexuality that wasn’t heterosexual was considered wrong. And upon research into heterosexuality technically that started out as a medical term that had deemed men’s attractions to women and vice versa were also perverted. Apparently sex of any kind was shameful at some point.

Still though it took time for him to think things through and like his friends his first thoughts went to his infamous sex life. The thing about that though was that he never really enjoyed the act. Objectively he knew he should and yeah, of course there was pleasure in it, but he had always felt somewhat detached from sex and really only participated in it for two reasons. One, it was expected of him, and two, he wasn’t ignorant to sexual pleasures and whatnot so he thought that maybe the problem had been the _kind_ of sex he was having. Sam was the one who noticed his aversion, which Tony had denied for the longest time, but eventually he had to admit that yes, he did grow cold and distant after sex and it was because he didn’t particularly enjoy it. He probably never would have come to terms with that if Sam hadn’t out and out refused to sleep with him after he put things together.

He refused to participate in making Tony feel like shit, he had said, and if Tony wasn’t going to take care of himself than Sam would. He had also admitted some time later that he had felt awful about not noticing sooner and that he felt dirty and like he had violated Tony somehow. Tony pointed out that Sam couldn’t possibly be held responsible for causing feelings Tony didn’t even notice until he pointed them out. It was no one’s fault he felt cheap and used after sex and Sam being the one to notice it technically made him responsible for the feelings going away. Later Rhodey had pointed out some of the racial implications to Sam’s feelings that Tony hadn’t considered, which had actually played something of a role in Sam’s feelings when Tony asked about it. But Tony hardly felt like Sam was some sex beast of whatever, the guy just liked sex and thought Tony did too, it wasn’t his fault that wasn’t true.

In the end it took months of trying to figure out his feelings and a lot of patience on Sam’s end but he did eventually figure it out. That didn’t mean his friends weren’t extremely confused though.

“I… well okay,” Steve says slowly. Tony can see him trying to find a way to word his concerns without being offensive but he didn’t seem to be finding anything.

“You have a pretty wild sex life,” Natasha finally says, saving Steve from being an ass. He looks visibly relived.

Tony shrugs, “you know me. I have to make a mistake at least twice to make sure it was actually a mistake the first time. Except this time it was oh I don’t know, probably a few hundred times before I realized maybe I should just… not do that.” He hadn’t even made the connection between his feelings and sex until Sam did. Which he also pointed out in that ‘you aren’t a crazed sex beast’ talk. It was hardly like black men were pigeon holed for being super emotionally in tune with their partners and he knew Sam prided himself in his emotional competence. It had gone a long way in soothing Sam’s feelings.

“You’ve done next to everything under the sun,” Scott, a new addition to the fiend group points out. “I watched that sex tape once- don’t look at me like that Rogers I was curious- and um. I don’t get it. No offense. I’m not trying to be a dick,” he says.

“Then don’t watch people’s sex tapes when they were leaked without their consent,” Steve hisses at him.

“Literally everyone has seen the sex tape Steve, calm it. And yeah, I didn’t like sex and _everyone_ likes sex. I thought I was doing something wrong so I experimented. A lot.” Like I _lot_. Nothing ever did work though. The closest he got was with Sam and he suspected that, against all odds, being emotionally connected to him made it less impactful for him later.

“That makes sense. Perhaps you had kinks you did not know about and only drew sexual enjoyment from those specific things,” T’Challa says, considering the options.

“Yes, exactly,” Tony says. Of course if he had that specific wording months ago it would have been more useful but no, he had to find a much more long winded way to explain it to Sam.

Scott frowns for a moment, “actually that does make sense. Guess it didn’t work out for you though.”

“Not really no. Probably never would have noticed if Sam didn’t.” It wasn’t that there was no joy in sex, his body still reacted to sexual stimuli and all of that, but his mind less so. That had probably been the hardest thing for him to wrap his head around but Sam had pointed out that responding to sexual stimuli didn’t mean you were interested in the act. If you played porn in the middle of a family gathering people’s bodies would react but not one of them would be likely to seek out sex in that moment. More likely they’d be embarrassed, especially if they had a strong reaction. That explanation had settled things for Tony and from there he worked out all the other problems in regards to examining his orientation.

“How do you not notice that, though?” Steve asks. It didn’t surprise him that he was the most vocal here. They never really have gotten along and though they put up with each other they had a bad habit of questioning everything the other did. Tony was sure Steve wasn’t trying to be an ass but Sam’s annoyed look says otherwise. More likely, Tony thought, Steve was keeping in pattern with their usual communication and it just happened to come out kind of ignorant this time.

“Same way you might not notice a minor allergy. I mean how long did Bucky eat plumbss before telling us that his tongue went numb when he ate them? He had no idea that wasn’t normal and he did say that it took forever to figure out it was only _plums_ that did that given that he usually eats a bunch of fruits all together. Same thing with me. I didn’t connect the general gross feeling I had to sex until Sam did. Probably never would have noticed either because people aren’t supposed to not like sex, literally no one talks about what to do when you don’t.” Usually when they did it was quickly followed by negative things like leaving your partner, making fun of them, or something else generally unpleasant. Thankfully Sam had quickly told Tony he was going to do none of those things. It still took some time for him to be comfortable with a sexless relationship because it was _expected_ Tony was more aware than he thought he was in regards to what happened when those expectations weren’t met.

It was actually Clint who pointed out that the expectation was kind of creepy to begin with. You didn’t expect sex from strangers and when you did it was generally regarded as sexual entitlement, so, he argued, it was still sexual entitlement if you expected it simply because you were dating a person. Sam had been quick to reaffirm that romance didn’t make you entitled to anything your partner wasn’t willing to provide. Tony was still self-conscious about it but Sam seemed to be doing fine without sex anyways so for now he left it.

“Why do you guys always have to bring up me and the plumbs? It was one time,” Bucky mumbles.

“One time for twenty seven years,” Sam points out, giving Bucky his petty look.

“Tony had sex for one time for twenty seven years and didn’t like it but we aren’t making fun of him,” Bucky mumbles.

“That’s why you never bothered to remember who you slept with,” Steve says, interrupting Sam and Bucky’s glaring at each other. “I always thought you were kind of a misogynistic asshole,” he says.

“Wow Rogers, tell me how you really feel. But yeah that was part of it, that and a genuine lack of understanding of why you even had to remember them and how it was somehow against women if you didn’t. If I weren’t famous I doubt they would remember much about me,” he points out. The entire _point_ of a one night stand was anonymity so why he got slammed for you know, sticking to that general rule he’s never understood.

“Also my Aunt Peggy would _kick my ass_ if I thought less of women. You’ve all met her, how could you possibly think I was misogynistic when you know how Aunt Peggy deals with those?” Her tentative relationship with his father was _hilarious_ and only got better when Tony got disinherited after Howard found out about Sam. Apparently the only thing worse than a bisexual son was a bisexual son dating a black guy. God even knew what he’d think of Tony now, not that he cared. Aunt Peggy decided that all bets were off after that and his mom stopped trying to defend him, which made it all even more entertaining. Jarvis gave him weekly updates because the man is a gossip at heart.

“That’s a good point. We should all take petty points from Peggy Carter because that woman is _savage_ ,” Sam says, shaking his head in wonder. Tony was pretty sure all his friends were at least a little in love with Peggy and their crushes only got more pronounced after she decided to run for president. Jarvis had been pretty enthused with _that_ development because Maria had out and out cut Howard off at some press conference to say that yes, of course they supported Peggy given that they’re long time friends. Howard had, according to Jarvis, looked like someone had shoved a rotten egg in his mouth but he wasn’t about to go back on it now. Tony could only imagine what the staunch republican was going to do when voting came around.

“Very true. The only reason I keep up with politics these days is because she’s so good at slamming her opponents,” Clint says. Yeah, Peggy has always been good at that and more than that she did so in a way that was graceful and useful to her campaign. Unlike her other opponents she didn’t resort to a personal attack unless it was pertinent. Like that time Rumlow tried to say her old spy work would somehow make her ineffective as a president so Peggy pointed out that perhaps Rumlow’s friend group being involved with various chapters of the KKK in a country with a history of slavery would make _his_ presidency a problem. Of course it was the fact that he tended to agree with those views that made her slam so effective. And also because she’s Peggy Carter and people really should know to just stand out of her way these days. The woman has only made history several times over.

“I would pay to have Peggy Carter punch me in the face,” Scott says.

“Tell her that and she might do it for free,” Tony tells him. Scott looks inexplicably happy about this but it’s overshadowed by T’Challa’s excitement over Tony’s new kitten that he didn’t know existed until it walked out of his and Sam’s bedroom. Wakanda had a weird thing for cats.

*

There were lots of things that Tony now knew weren’t normal but this had to take the cake. “I’m sorry, did you just say the best part of being in a long term relationship was that you didn’t have to worry about people being attractive or if they were gay or straight or whatever?” Tony asks, frowning. “Why would any of that even matter? People are people, wouldn’t you just… treat them like people?” How any of that other stuff factored in he had no idea.

“That’s actually my favorite part of a relationship too,” Sam admits and Tony squints at him in confusion. The saving grace to all of this was that Clint looked just as confused. He was probably asexual but admitted full well that he was too lazy to figure it out for sure.

“Again, how does that matter? Why would anyone even consider those things when talking to other people?” The first thing he tended to consider was intelligence. There was nothing more painful to him than having a conversation with someone who wasn’t smart. Steve once pointed out that that was kind of ableist- Tony had had to look up the term- but had concluded that intelligence was more than what Steve had likely used in his definition. Rhodey and Sam were both extremely intelligent by the usual standards- both had science degrees from prestigious universities and both were talented inventors- but it was their emotional competence that drew Tony to them. He liked Clint because his ability to memorize information and repeat back useless but fun facts was entertaining and impressive. He liked Pepper because she was good with numbers and hyper-organized. To find out that he’d been considering all of these things while his friends were off thinking ‘hur de dur dur, is he hot?’ was weird and made no sense.

“That’s… not something you consider?” Scott asks, frowning.

“No. I want to know if the person I’m talking to is smart because I hate dumbing myself down to be palatable to the general public. It’s annoying. Attractiveness and orientation are irrelevant. The only time I ever considered those things was in that sexual experimentation phase and even then I guess all the things I looked for were weird.” Sam had once asked him what drew Tony to him and he had said that Sam was smart, that he was in tune with emotions, and he had a nice laugh. Those were the first three things he noticed about Sam and they were intriguing enough that he wanted to know more. It helped that they met in a psychologist’s office and Tony was positive Sam was a psychologist and he was intent on ruining therapy before it started. It turned out he was half right- Sam dealt with people with PTSD though he was classed as a councilor, but he wasn’t going to be Tony’s. Granted Tony had been diagnosed with PTSD later thanks to years of abuse at the hands of his father but still.

Sam had been surprised _that’s_ what Tony noticed. It hadn’t been hard given that Tony walked up as Sam was finishing giving advice to some random person and then laughed at one of Tony’s obscure science jokes. Of course Sam was awesome in all sorts of other ways, like his sense of humor was excellent, his petty nature was even funnier than his jokes, he had good taste in T.V shows, and obviously he’s attractive but still.

“That’s true,” Sam confirms, “nine times out of ten people notice my ass first. Tony noticed my _laugh_.”

“You have a nice ass too,” Tony tells him. Rhodey was secretly jealous of Sam’s nice ass because he was lacking in that department and Tony found the whole thing hilarious.

“Okay but how do you know?” Scott asks, squinting a little.

“You ever found something pretty?” Tony asks, “like a Christmas tree or something?” Scott nods, “did you want to fuck it?”

“Ew no,” Scott says, wrinkling his nose.

“Congrats, you understand how you can find something, or in Sam’s case some _one_ attractive without wanting to have sex with it. Hazzuh,” he says, waving his hands around. Clint snorts and starts laughing.

“Do Americans… not have a concept of that?” T’Challa asks, looking confused.

“Not really no, we tend to assume sexual attraction and seeing a person’s physical appeal as the same thing,” Steve explains. Thanks god he had the patience to deal with poor T’Challa’s questions because Tony didn’t. He thought America was a nationalistic country but Wakanda took it to some whole new levels. He guessed that’s what happens when you’re country decided to hide itself away from the world though.

“So… Americans would not be able to see the physical appeal their family members, for example, might have without a sexual component? Because I have heard people say that their family members are attractive and I am concerned,” he says.

Tony, Sam, Clint, and Scott all burst out laughing and Steve looks pained. “T’Challa, it isn’t that Americans don’t separate physical appeal and sexual attraction, you just pointed out a situation where they obviously to, it’s just that no one thinks about it. People make those distinctions in their minds all the time, but when it comes to actually naming that ability there is none. Aesthetic attraction, sexual attraction, and romantic attractions are all one thing to most people even if we actively separate those things all the time,” Steve says.

“That makes sense I suppose. I have wondered about American concepts before but more so since Tony has mentioned this asexual thing. I find it strange, and I am wondering of you do too Tony, that in America sex is seen as necessary to a relationship but when all there is to a relationship is sex people are offended. And if there is no sex in a relationship people are also offended. Actually sex in general is treated as a taboo here and that is just bizarre to me,” T’Challa says. Wakanda, apparently, had more liberal views of sex and sexual relationships. That cross-cultural notion of gayness and such didn’t translate cross culturally very well to T’Challa. In his country they apparently did whatever and people didn’t particularly care so all the names to sexual orientations were lost on him for a long time.

“I’m confused on a lot of things people think about sex,” Tony says. “Like everything being compared to an orgasm. If I ever hear the word ‘eargasm’ ever again I am calling NASA to launch me into space because I can’t be on a planet where people use that term.” It was weird and unnatural, like the word moist.

“Okay that’s just not right,” Sam agrees. “People sticking ‘gasm’ to the end of any word just aren’t right.”

“I’m just saying people are picking an inferior feeling, that feeling you get when you _know_ you’re making history is so much better,” he says. He gets that one all the time and he’s even won two Nobel Prizes. One he won after Howard kicked him out, proving that clearly Howard’s assumption that Tony was nothing without him was totally wrong.

“Stark, most people don’t even _get_ that feeling you chose a bad comparison. There’s nothing better than biting into a pizza,” Clint says.

“Petting cats,” T’Challa says to absolutely no one’s surprise. “Also I agree with Tony that it is strange that you all consider attractiveness and orientation when you meet new people. That sounds exhausting.”

Steve sighs and shakes his head, “pansexual problems,” he says somewhat wistfully.

“ _Same_ ,” Sam confirms.

*

“I know you and Tony have been dating for some time but seems how this is the first time I’m meeting you I’m obligated to tell you that if you break his heart you will find out why people fear me after they cross me,” Peggy Carter says. Sam knows objectively that he should be afraid because Peggy Carter is genuinely scary, he’s heard the stories and the rumors, but he can’t bring himself to be very threatened when he’d never hurt Tony.

“It won’t happen,” he says honestly and Peggy nods and some of the fire in her expression fades.

“Tony tells me you’re very supportive,” she says.

“Well, I try. Sometimes he’s difficult about it,” he tells her, thinking of that damn sex fiasco once Sam finally put Tony’s mood swings and sex together. His mood fluctuated far less now though he still did really stupid things when he was in a mood. He was working on it though and his stupid decisions were at least calmer now than they were before. Now he decided to order four hundred pizzas just to see what happened instead of drinking too much and passing out in alleyways. It was an improvement even if Sam was now so sick of pizza that he felt stick just _smelling_ it. Even Clint was sick of the food now.

Peggy laughs, “oh I’ve known him his whole life and trust me, this isn’t new. Once when he was five he refused to eat for three days because his mom tried to feed him broccoli. To this day we have no idea _why_ , when he refused to eat it Maria eventually gave up but Tony apparently wanted his opinion about broccoli _that_ known. Needless to day on the fourth day he was starving and Maria stopped worrying about him starving to death.”

Sam snorts because yeah, that sounded like something Tony would do. He guessed his eating habits hadn’t really evened out though given how strange they were. Sometimes Tony forgot to eat for an unknown period of time and when that wasn’t happening he ate everything in sight minus broccoli, which he still hated. “Yeah, everything has to be the hard way with him,” he agrees.

Peggy nods, “when he finally figured out why Tony couldn’t do addition and subtraction despite being able to do advanced calculus we learned that the math was so easy that he’d spend hours over thinking it because he couldn’t believe a math problem would be that simple. He was ten,” Peggy says.

Shortly before his admission into MIT then so they already knew for some time that Tony was a genius of some pretty impressive proportions. Sam classified as a genius too but he was nowhere near as good at… well anything as Tony with the exception of being emotionally competent. In his defense that was a pretty impressive thing to be advanced in. “Sounds right. You should have seen his reaction to me telling him to wash the cat.” She had gotten into their neighbor’s garden herbs and was covered in dirt and mint leaves. Instead of just sticking the cat in a tub and scrubbing her down Tony invented the cat equivalent of a car wash. In his slight defense she was one clean cat afterwards even if she was also some pissed. Even the rumba roaming around couldn’t draw her out and she loved to sit on it as it cleaned the apartment.

“I heard about the kitty car wash. Sometimes I wonder how someone with all that genius could be so ridiculously dense,” she says, shaking her head.

“I think it might actually be the genius’ fault. I’m pretty sure he has no idea how to think simple.” It was like Tony’s version of Kryptonite. Normal people, Sam was sure, would not have spent most of their lives experimenting sexually just to exhaust every single sexual option before deciding that maybe they didn’t much enjoy sex. But this was Tony and he couldn’t just do anything the easiest way, he had to overthink it until he came up with some convoluted solution that was usually also simple, but not as simple as the obvious option.

In Tony’s defense it was probably also the reason he was so successful. Howard’s disinheriting him had been a bad business move on his part given that the company that Tony started not too long ago was quickly rising to be Stark Industry’s greatest competitor. So far Tony has blown past quite a few people with Stark Resilient and now he and Pepper were frantically putting together expansion plans they didn’t think they’d need for years. Sam knew that would happen though because it’s _Tony_ and nothing he ever did managed to stay small for long. He did, however, get a sweet job as head of the R &D department so that was pretty cool. Tony had asked Rhodey first but he was still dedicated to the military and Sam was, at least according to Tony, technically the more qualified one but ‘bros before hoes’. He didn’t complain because he got to build that really cool drone he’s had ideas for for years and Tony actually pet Redwing unlike all of their friends. Redwing could _hover_ and without blades.

“He doesn’t,” Peggy confirms, “but it does make him amusing. I am happy to hear that you’re happy together though, after all that Howard has put him through he deserves to be happy. Vote for me in the primaries,” she tells him and with that she walks off. Sam shakes his head and laughs mostly because it was amusing that she’d act as if he had any other voting options. He’d sooner cut off his left toe than vote Rumlow.


End file.
